The first Tournament of Roses Parade was held in 1890 to showcase the warm winter climate of Pasadena, California. The famous Rose Bowl football game didn't come along until 1902. Since then, the annual parade has become as much a New Year's Day tradition as the ball dropping in Times Square has become part of New Year's Eve.

Being a more sedentary type, the newer tradition of camping out on Colorado Boulevard the night before to watch the parade in person was not something I was particularly eager to be part of. But when the commander-in-chief of my household (i.e. my wife) speaks, the peons can only obey. The good news was that I was generously given permission to bring a pair of Nintendo DS systems in order to keep myself and the other two children in the household amused. It worked in ways I hadn't really anticipated, including, of all things, defusing a potential fistfight.

We arrived at the front of our motel on Colorado Boulevard at 1:00 p.m. on December 31st. Pasadena police allow campers to set up chairs and blankets along the parade route as of noon, meaning that by the time we had checked into our room, the route was already lined with chairs, heaters, blankets, portable grills cooking hotdogs and giant boom boxes blasting the finest in hip-hop and Spanish-language radio. The plan was for us (us meaning me) to take it in shifts to sit with the chairs on the sidewalk while the rest of us (meaning my wife, the kids and some other friends and family members) used the hotel room for warmth and the bathroom.

Our first hint of trouble came when we started arguing with the large chucklehead who decided that having four chairs entitled him to claim half the sidewalk space in front of the motel. He was a large man with a thick beard and forearms that bore a startling resemblance to tree trunks.

"You can't do that!" I argued. "If you haven't got a chair or a blanket down, it's open space."

"I've got a lot of people coming!" the guy screamed back.

"I've got people here NOW!" I yelled in reply.

This led to lots of macho posturing and threats of various natures that might have ended up in a fistfight had our respective wives not worked out a compromise and screamed at both of us to back off. This didn't sit well with either of us and both of us retreated as far away from each other as possible, sulked like Achilles in our tents and nursed our wounded male pride. We were going to be neighbors for the next 16-18 hours and already I felt like a Hatfield.